


The Cadmeian Cycle

by athousandwinds



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2010-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:38:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those whom the gods favour die young. The House of Cadmus enjoys an unusual amount of favour from the gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cadmeian Cycle

**one. the girl with the lamp**

Her lover comes to her at night (not every night). Semele spends the evening lighting lamps for him (so he can find his way back to her). He's a diligent lover (she's afraid that someone else is keeping him).

When he comes to her (comes in her), his great hands cover her breasts and move slowly over her skin. He's so careful not to hurt her, this frail mortal in his arms (she wonders if he ever thinks of crushing her). But the only thing he has ever done (but not the only thing he could ever do) to harm her is keep his silence. Because no one else does.

"Slut," says Agave in the morning. Her (serpent's) tongue flicks out to taste the last of the wine on her lips.

"He loves me," Semele says (and today he does).

"You've brought shame on all of us," Ino says. Her eyes are red and swollen, her voice hoarse. A family has turned Cadmus from their door (who wants an ally who can't control his whorish daughters?).

Semele lies on her bed and weeps. (He doesn't come to comfort her.)

"You could just ask him to prove it," says her maid, a woman of (cow-faced) calm good sense. She smiles (like a cat) at Semele's tears and presses her hand down on her stomach. "You don't want the little one growing up fatherless."

Her maid always knows. Semele's mouth wobbles, but she manages a grin.

He comes again that night, his fierce mouth on hers (beard scratching at her throat). She begs him, gasping for breath as he ruts inside her. He says, "yes, _yes_" and "I'll give you the world, _anything_" and spends himself with a loud groan.

She's not supposed to remind him of the things he says when he has his eyes closed. She does anyway.

"I want to see you as you truly are," she says.

She'd never thought it was possible for gods to look so sick (unless he isn't a god).

"No," he says. "No, no, no, no, no."

If he were a god, then he wouldn't refuse. She says so. She asks and asks and asks and reminds him that he _promised_ (pouting. He doesn't like women who pout. He says it makes him think of his wife). In the end, he agrees.

She blinks a moment (did she knock over a lamp?) and then there's screaming, sobbing, in a voice that doesn't sound like her own. Her blood is boiling under her skin and she reaches out her flaming hands to him, the god, the king of gods, and begs with the little whimper he loved, only she's burning now, burning and the little whimper is a high-pitched keening that won't ever stop.

**two. the boy with the dogs**

"He dreams only of hunting," Actaeon's mother says fondly. Actaeon, lying in the grass, knows it's not true. He dreams of many things, like flying and games of discus (and of his aunt, Semele, in the arms of Zeus).

He has left his dogs to run wild and his horse to drink its fill at the river while he sprawls on the ground, listening to the bees and the whisper of flowers. He almost falls asleep, lazy (drowning in life). After a long time, he thinks he might go and find his horse before it guzzles itself to death (he's bored). Actaeon ambles along the bank until he comes to the pool where he left it: a glade of unspeakable beauty, with the white willows leaning over the shining silver waters, trailing their weeping branches. He recognises the lush green of the grass, and the rippling surface must be -

The shock hits him, thrumming through his veins and he can hear his heart beating in his ears. He opens his mouth to speak, but his throat is dry. He should be dead now, burning in the wrath of a goddess; he should be dead now, but he feels keenly alive, trembling with delight and fear and desire. His cock is growing, now so hard he thinks it might burst with wanting it.

She is naked, not the commonplace nudity of hetairai, but a deadly secret he has come upon; he has profaned the purity of Artemis (his cock jerks). The maiden, marble and untouchable stands six feet away, her skin flushed and tanned, a trickle of water sliding over her breast. Her clothes lie discarded on the other side of the pool and she is looking at them, her gaze cool and unconcerned (he thinks of her wrapped around him, crying out in ectasy). Actaeon watches the play of water over her skin, coalescing round one perfect nipple, or skimming the rounded curve of her breast. The moisture glistening between her legs is from bathing, or not from bathing, he can't think, he can't decide.

She decides for him. One stride and she has his chiton in her powerful grip, bringing their faces together. This close, her scent would drive any animal mad; at the end of the day, Actaeon is only an animal like any other. He covers her mouth with his, forcefully, and is rewarded when she pulls him tighter against her. And then the game changes and Actaeon is flung to the floor; he gasps for breath. She is on him a moment later, pushing against him.

There has never been anything like this for Actaeon. He hears his chiton rip and feels the warm breeze on his cock before Artemis, straddling him, smiles and glides up his body. He bucks up, kissing her between her legs and hears her pleased sigh. Bolder, he lifts his face to her curls and she presses down. He finds the bud at the apex of her thighs and his tongue flicks out to taste it. High above him somewhere, she moans, and the smell of her lust is overwhelming. Actaeon whimpers against her, loving the pain of her fingers tangled in his hair, and she forces herself down harder against his lips, again and again until she writhes suddenly with a loud cry. She falls back against his chest, her glossy black hair brushing against his cock. His hips buck and his breath catches in his throat as he gazes at her, her fair brow gleaming with sweat.

"Goddess," he whispers. It's a prayer, and Artemis opens her eyes to smile, sly and half-satisfied.

She moves back down his torso and sits on his knees, holding him down. He wants, with a desperation until now unknown to him, to flip them over, to push her down and fuck a goddess with all the lust left in him, to thrust until she comes again, this time screaming his name. He tries to buck again, but he can't move, held by iron will and iron wrists.

"Now," Artemis says, and smiles. She's careful about it (like a virgin, not like a virgin should be), but she moans in pleasure as she slides down his cock. She squirms vigorously until she's firmly seated, making approving noises all the way, which make Actaeon pant with the effort of not begging. Her hands on his chest push him into the grass as she begins to grind against him. Every time he tries to rear up, to take control, she forces him down more brutally into the ground, biting or scratching him as punishment. Once, she puts her fingers to a nipple and _twists_; Actaeon screams, half-insane with craving her. For his response, she allows him to thrust up once into her taut, athletic body, before shoving him back down to take her own pleasure.

Actaeon is blind with desire. He thinks (if he does think) about _sacrifice sacrifice sacrifice_; Goddess, I'll spend my days prostrate to feel this again. But now, _now_, there is only Artemis and wild ardour. Longing and recklessness overtaking sense, he grasps Artemis by the hair to pull her down for a kiss; livid at his presumption, perhaps, she crushes her mouth against his, stealing his breath. Then she rears back on her heels, slamming her hips down viciously, more violent than a woman ever could be. Actaeon is screaming again, a sound less human than the goddess above him; he thinks it might be begging for mercy, for climax, for her. His hands are allowed to find her hips, to help her as she hammers down on his cock, squeezing and flexing. Finally, she throws her head back with a passionate cry, with a shudder so intense that she trembles all through her body and Actaeon can feel it. He's keening, he knows it, as he drives up into her -

\- and is suddenly cold and bereft. He comes with a shout, splattering all over himself and Artemis as she stands up. She smoothes her hands over her breasts in a movement so lewd Actaeon half-believes his empty cock twitches. She touches a fingertip to the semen on her slender, muscled inner thigh and tastes it delicately; Actaeon once more forgets to breathe.

"Not unpleasant," she says, considering. "I still don't see what the fuss is about."

Actaeon watches her move, dreamlike, through the water of the pool. She shakes herself dry and dresses in a trice, then crosses back towards him.

"A blessing, first," she says. "You shall die participating in the sport you love most." She traces a finger down his stomach, smiling. "And if you ever open your mouth to speak again, of this or anything else, I will punish you."

Actaeon only whimpers, conscious of the bitemarks on his chest and the scratches on his shoulder.

The sun is red and low in the sky when he can first bring himself to move. The goddess Artemis has left him sore and wanting and he begins to limp home, horse in tow.

Without thinking, he turns to call for his dogs.

**three. the boy in the dress**

Someone – some woman – is screaming. "_Bacchus, euoi!_"

They are mad, these women. They must be, to strip themselves like that, to writhe in ecstasy, to shriek so piercingly. Pentheus pictures one in his mind: her rich, sky-blue chiton torn to expose her breasts; her dark hair wild and uncontrolled; her sinuous movements on the ground. He imagines his mother like that.

"You Thebans," the stranger says. His eyes are black like spilled ink, his mouth painted and his skin pale like a woman's. It makes Pentheus sick to look at him; the bottom drops out of his stomach and his tongue goes dry. "What is it about you and mothers?"

"Never mention her name," Pentheus manages, rage thankfully overcoming illness.

"I didn't," says the stranger, spreading out his hands with a harmless smile. It's not harmless at all; it frightens Pentheus. At least, fear is a better name for it than anything else. "Why don't we talk about mine, instead?"

"I know what your mother is," Pentheus says contemptuously. "She's another of your whores."

The stranger's hand comes up; never let it be said Pentheus flinches from a blow. But the stranger only puts his hand to Pentheus's cheek, gentle, even a caress. "Oh," he says, hardly a breath. "I hoped you'd say that."

Pentheus does take a step back from this, the sickness rising in his chest. It's too late; he feels feverish already, his chest thumping so hard it almost hurts. "Don't touch me."

"Why?" The stranger is watching him, his head tilted on one side. "What do you fear?"

Pentheus fears nothing. "You were going to take me to your _bacchants_," he spits. "Where are they?"

"The bacchae will tear you apart if they see you like this," the stranger says. "Let me dress you first."

Pentheus hesitates, remembers the stranger's accusation of cowardice, and flushes. "Do it, then."

"Isn't it lucky," the stranger remarks, cheerful as ever. "I have something in your size."

It turns out to be red. Pentheus holds the linen in his hands; seen through half-closed eyes, it looks like a river of blood.

The stranger dresses him slowly, carefully. Every movement seems deliberate, wrapping him assiduously in the folds of scarlet cloth. There must be something wrong with him; he feels dizzy on today of all days. He has work to do. But not now. The stranger is running his long-fingered hands down Pentheus's chest.

"What – ?"

"Just a thought," the stranger says, smiling. He nuzzles Pentheus's ear and Pentheus lets him. It even seems like a good idea. He can find out things, if the stranger wants him. He lets his head fall back.

The stranger's mouth is hot and wet on his throat and his hands seem to be everywhere, stroking and squeezing. Pentheus tries to kiss him, but the stranger laughs soft and low, and turns his face away.

"Is this – " _part of the disguise_, he wants to say. The stranger seems to hear him.

"People will see you are a lover of the god," he says, warm and reassuring.

But, Pentheus wants to say. He doesn't get much further than that. The stranger's hands are where they shouldn't be, and he feels feverish again. The heat, that must be it, which makes his bones heavy and his body lazy. He itches all over.

The stranger has him in his grip. Pentheus cries out, and hopes the slaves didn't hear him. He thinks of them coming inside – to see what is wrong; and what is wrong is everything, their king in the hands of a rebel leader, their king undone by a girlish man.

"This is when the women are at their peak," the stranger murmurs. "This is the zenith of their madness. Let me show you."

_I am a sane and reasonable man_, Pentheus thinks, and then, twisting and moaning in the stranger's arms, doesn't think at all. The backs of his eyelids burn bright from the sun; he can hear a voice not his own sobbing out breath after breath while the stranger's grasp grows punishing and a lesser man would beg for mercy. He licks his upper lip and tastes his own salty sweat. Finally, with his face buried in the stranger's shoulder, he feels the splash of semen soaking his peplos and the scent of it catches his nose.

"That is the sign by which they shall know you," says the stranger, chuckling at some private joke.

"And all – all the women are like this?"

"When they feel like it," says the stranger with a shrug. "Come with me now, and they will dance with you in their arms."

"Will they love me?"

"As much as they love their own sons," says the stranger.

"Will they – " even with the stranger's breath in his ear and his fingers stroking his nipple, Pentheus can't quite say it. But the stranger knows his heart intimately.

"They'll all want a piece of you," he says.

Pentheus looks at himself in the polished silver mirror, leaning back against the stranger. He looks curious and unlike a man, unlike a king. His face is reddened and his mouth curved oddly, upturned. If he didn't feel so peculiar, he would demand of the stranger what he had done.

But he does trust him. The stranger has not led him wrong yet, so Pentheus takes his outstretched hand and lets him lead him from the room.


End file.
